How many people feel they’ve been treated so badly they feel they can’t speak up?

15 April 2015

IT’S totally fair to say I’m feeling depressed and drained physically and mentally which is why I’ve taken to this page to express my serious concerns.

I have gallbladder disease and I have been in and out of almost every accident and emergency department on my radius. I’m a young wife in my 30s, and a mother of three children. I work two jobs and pay taxes on both. Today, I have never felt so let down by our so called health services. Not only do I feel let down, I feel humiliated by my recent hospital treatment.

When a gallbladder attack happens, it’s like 2,000 hot pokers being ripped through your body continuously, all while vomiting, sweating, screaming and clinging to the floor in pure agony. It is also the most frightening, searing, torturous pain and I have given birth naturally three times.

My illness is becoming more painfully intense and more frequent as time goes on. The fear of my next attack is always with me; it disturbs my children greatly when they see their mother writhing on the floor in pure agony. It also affects my ability to do my jobs, in either not being able to attend work due to being heavily medicated or lack of sleep from being in hospital all night. It is seriously affecting me, my moods and my outlook on my life.

While living like this for over the past two years, I have been treated many times in the Downe Hospital. Some by routine appointments, which have always been professional and thorough, and some by A&E.

However, my most recent attack has brought me to share the extremely worrying care that I received while needing “urgent” medical attention. My attack started as normal at 10pm on April 8. It starts off as a slow, dull ache, that sometimes can tail off under two hours. In this time it may take your breath away or leave you feeling extremely tight around the stomach, chest and back area. In these occasions I can usually take two strong Cocodamol or Tramadol tablets in the hope it goes away.

However, I knew after we were into the third hour that the pain was only going to advance very quickly. By this stage, I was unable to stand up or sit down, I was unable to breathe and I felt extremely alarmed and panicked. By this time, I knew nothing was going to take the pain away.

At 1.48am, I asked my 14 year-old daughter to call an ambulance for me as I was unable to speak. She had to help me dress and climb up the stairs while we waited for the ambulance that was coming “very soon”. By 2.15am, no ambulance had arrived.

At this stage I was lying on the kitchen floor in agony and my daughter was extremely worried and began to cry. She didn’t know if she should wait outside on the ambulance as told to do so on the phone, or to stay and help her mum. At 2.20am I started vomiting. The dispatch person on the phone had told my daughter to call back if this happened.

Again we were told the ambulance was on its way. After a further call to the Ambulance Service, one arrived at 3.10am, all the way from Belfast.

After receiving some treatment in the ambulance — gas, air and morphine — it was then decided I needed to go to hospital. We arrived at the Ulster Hospital’s A&E just after 4.30am. My daughter had come with me out of fear as she saw how ill I was. The ambulance crew brought me in and for the record these guys were amazing with myself and my daughter. Thank you Craig and Brian.

They stated to me that I was “lucky” as it was a quiet night. They were then told to leave me beside the nurses’ station desk in the corridor so a nurse could check me over. After this I was told a doctor would be with me shortly. At this stage I was still in severe pain and extremely distressed about being left in a corridor. I was told I would get pain relief when the doctor saw me. I lay there for two-and-a-half hours before I was moved to a “warmer” part of the corridor. Here, I lay beside a 91 year-old woman who had hearing problems and was in a state of deep confusion and distress.

The doctor came to see me at 7.05am, asked a me a few questions, felt my tummy and went for a second opinion. Another doctor came to see me, stated that as I knew my condition well I should be able to go home and gave me two Paracetamol. I was over 30 miles from home with my 14 year-old daughter, in my pyjamas and still under the effects of morphine.

Since I have been home I have been feeling extremely traumatised over the whole situation and it has troubled me greatly. Yet I feel that I am one of far too many.

I do not like to ring for an ambulance and put doctors to any trouble. I do not want to feel like this, but I do not understand how people are expected to cope. I believe I was treated very poorly, but cannot blame doctors and nurses who are pushed to the absolute limit. Why do we have a perfectly functioning yet empty hospital 13 miles away in Downpatrick, but I can be left in a hallway in the Ulster Hospital? Elderly distressed patients are lying in cold corridors.

What makes the matter worse is that I have been on a waiting list from July 2013 to have my gallbladder removed due to problems it causes my liver function and blood. I was called for my pre-operation assessment in January this year. It gave me the hope that I would be called for my operation in the next few months. I was given March as an estimation.

Following my recent visit to A&E at the Ulster I called my surgeon’s secretary yesterday to see how the list was progressing and I tearfully told her of my experience. It turns out I am “away down the list” and won’t be admitted for quite some time as they simply have no beds and surgery was halted due to the current problems within our health service. Was the Downe Hospital not built for these reasons?

I do not understand how this is allowed to happen? How many people are suffering due to at least one hospital closing? How many people will die while waiting over an hour on an ambulance, or die while travelling to a hospital 30 miles from home? How many people feel they have been treated so badly that they feel they can’t speak up?

It’s a very degrading experience in an environment that is supposed to care and mend us. How many staff are pushed to the absolute limit that their own health is suffering? Please, please save our hospital and please fight for those people who do not have the strength to do so now themselves. I am not looking for any sympathy by posting this, but if it gives this cause a push so be it.

• NEWCASTLE woman Claire Carolan posted this moving and illuminating article on social media about her experiences of suffering from a serious gallbladder problem and the ”worrying care” she received at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald.

The mother of three is also critical of the Ambulance Service, but does not blame doctors, nurses or paramedics for her recent experiences, but those charged with delivering health services.

An advocate of more services being delivered at the Downe Hospital in Downpatrick, Claire has nothing but praise for local medical staff and believes they should be given the opportunity to do more to ease the pressure on major hospitals in the Belfast area.

In this post made on the Downe Hospital 24-hour A&E Facebook page last Friday, Claire insists she is not looking for sympathy, but to assist with the push for more services to be delivered at the Downe to spare people the journey to hospitals outside the district.

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